Personality Responsibility for Behavior

[bluechillj]

I'm not completely certain how we got onto such extreme examples, sorry! Godwin's Law jumped in really quick and almost unseen!

Referring back to the original idea of genetics playing a part in behavior, and the subsequent lack of control due to predisposition, I still have to disagree. It may give a very strong INCLINATION to a certain behavior but it doesn't guarantee a certain behavior every time, IMHO. Once the inclination is recognized, a choice is then made to make adjustments to the behavior or not and that is control. The initial behavior may be out of the individual's control but once undertaken and recognized as "bad", it is totally within an individual's control from that point on.

Hmmm...so I agree with the inclination idea, and that the behavior isn't guaranteed/fated to occur or anything. But I must admit I'm still sympathetic to a continuum model. Hypothetically, at what point would you say that a person is still internally choosing their behavior...if genes determined 50% of the cause, 99% of the cause, 99.99%? For some people the answer is anything except 100%. At some point for me, the odds become stacked heavily enough against a person making a particular choice, no matter what their conscious intentions are, that I am comfortable view them as only partially causing their own behavior.

And again, I'm very likely to hold them 100% responsible for the behavior, but I'm very interested in this gap between my feelings of 100% accountability and the reality of people's partial control over behavior.

 

[OCBuckWife]

Interesting. You are right that I do view outside influences as causal, although as partial causes. And some would argue that if a person is even 1% causing a behavior, then that might as well be 100% (not sure yet where I fall on this). If I'm understanding, I think your example illustrates the situations in which there is an ability to more consciously determine behavior, but I would go back to things like implicit associations which can partially cause our behavior while being outside of our conscious control and awareness, and are likely heavily derived from things like culture, which are also largely outside of our control. The very alarming thing about these associations is that a person can totally consciously disagree with them (your example: "I don't think we should work Jewish people so hard"), and yet can be unconsciously caused to act in a biased way toward those people for certain behaviors (this is where my using your example no longer fits, as I don't think this behavior would be applicable :)).

It seems like a lot of the difference in perspective may come down to how much one "buys into" these particular types of causes and a person's ability to act independently of them.

I'm not completely certain how we got onto such extreme examples, sorry! Godwin's Law jumped in really quick and almost unseen!

Referring back to the original idea of genetics playing a part in behavior, and the subsequent lack of control due to predisposition, I still have to disagree. It may give a very strong INCLINATION to a certain behavior but it doesn't guarantee a certain behavior every time, IMHO. Once the inclination is recognized, a choice is then made to make adjustments to the behavior or not and that is control. The initial behavior may be out of the individual's control but once undertaken and recognized as "bad", it is totally within an individual's control from that point on.

Ok, to add to my post after reading your post, I agree. Having unconscious behavior that is influenced by unconscious biases is perfectly reasonable and has been shown to be true over and over. I guess where I am coming from is as stated above. At a certain point those unconscious behaviors are usually recognized(or should be!) and that point become conscious choices. It then becomes a personal responsibility because it is now an evaluated in an aware state. Soooo many buzzwords........my brain must break now.

 

[bluechillj]

Ok, to add to my post after reading your post, I agree. Having unconscious behavior that is influenced by unconscious biases is perfectly reasonable and has been shown to be true over and over. I guess where I am coming from is as stated above. At a certain point those unconscious behaviors are usually recognized(or should be!) and that point become conscious choices. It then becomes a personal responsibility because it is now an evaluated in an aware state. Soooo many buzzwords........my brain must break now.

That sounds quite reasonable to me. Yes, enough for me too...time for bed (another time zone). Thanks for the interesting discussion.

 

[MililaniBuckeye]

Fuck "studies"...they can be skewed in any way the study controller wants. You are always responsible for your own actions.

 

[scooter1369]

Fuck "studies"...they can be skewed in any way the study controller wants. You are always responsible for your own actions.

ding ding ding. We have a winner

 

[generaladm]

I'm getting to this a little late (partially because I thought it was about personality ), but I have some thoughts. First off, there is an important distinction between actions that are instinctive (fight or flight, as mentioned in the first post), and actions that require a logical process. Instincts, such as FoF or the desire for food and water, are controlled mostly by the cerebellum, or brain stem. This is the most primitive part of the brain, our link to lesser animals. Reactions such as FoF are survival mechanisms processed without the need of the higher brain functions of the cerebrum. The example of walking down a dark alley has little to do with learned behavior, and everything to do with survival instincts. An interesting aspect of this is the discovery of neurotransmitters all along the gastrointestinal system. There are enough nerve cells in the digestive tract to act as a "second brain", hence the term "gut feeling". It is thought that the purpose for this is to decrease the time it takes impulses to travel from the brain to the lower extremities. A so-so article here.

Secondly, there seems to be a grey area in the definitions of "behavior" and "actions". I would define behavior as a recurring pattern of actions. Let's continue with the example of a person who was brought up in a racist environment. The use of racial slurs, and basing decisions or evaluations on race are actions. The repetition of similar actions over a period of time determine a person's behavior. I'm not sure if there needs to be a distinction, since they are so intertwined. If anyone has any thoughts, I'd like to hear them.

As to ones responsibility for behavior, or genetics's influence thereof, the best I can speculate is 6 of 1, half dozen of the other. I'm pretty much in agreement with BKB's assertion that behavior is a combination of nature and nurture. The thing that I'm surprised no one mentioned are behaviors that are believed to be influenced by genetics, such as alcoholism. While there have been no concrete links between heredity and alcoholism, it has become a widely accepted theory. There are a couple of arguments either way. It would be logical to assume that a baby whose mother consumed alcohol during gestation or nursing would develop a physical dependence. Conversely, a child who grows up in an environment where the parent(s) regularly drink, the disposition towards alcoholism could be a learned behavior. As BKB also pointed out, behaviors, even physical and psychological dependencies, can be altered through conscious effort. This suggests that even if a person is genetically predisposed to certain behavior, ultimately they have a choice whether to continue said behavior, no matter how difficult a change may be.

I personally believe that a person's environment during their formative years is the biggest influence on behavior. Humans learn primarily by imitation. In the years before a child starts school, their brains are like sponges, soaking up everything they observe. The most interaction they have during this period is with the immediate family. By the time a child begins to interact with non family members on a regular basis, the building blocks for behavior and personality have been laid. While a person continues to develop throughout their life, the habits formed during childhood will endure. The learned behaviors that people would most need to be "held responsible" for (such as addiction, physical or sexual abuse) are unfortunately usually the most deep rooted. I believe a factor in this could be that these behaviors are often kept secret within a family. In a case like this, a person brought up in an abusive environment still makes a choice and is responsible for continuing such behavior, but in reality, it would probably take years of counseling to change completely.

Is it football season yet?

 

[stxbuck]

A person's psychological makeup may very well determine how they respond to stimuli like drugs, sex, food,etc-it's called having an addictive personality. That said, if one realizes they have a predisposition for addictive behavior-ie, they cannot drink 2 beers and call it a night, they have to be crawling on the floor, or snorting 5 inch lines of coke to be "satisfied" for the night-they have a responsibility to avoid said behavior. Once the chemical or stimuli is in your nervous system, you are out of control-it is your responsibility to avoid putting that stimulus in your face-whether it is a beer, a betting slip, or an all you can eat buffet at the Golden Corral. I have zero simpathy for someone who refuses to take positive steps to control their addictive behaviors-does it suck they can't throw back a few cold ones watching the Buckeyes-yes, it does. It also sucks for Type 2 diabetics that they can't eat whatever they want, but that is the genetic hand they have been dealt.
As far as environmental stimuli-bullshit-you can see immoral/unproductive behavior and understand it for what it is-why do think one of Biggie Smalls
"10 Crack Commandments" was 'don't get high off your own supply". People choose to live by established moral code or they choose to live for immediate gratification.

 

[bluechillj]

I'm not sure why people seem so threatened or dismissive of 'studies,' like they are all just somehow biased propaganda from the researcher. That's really insulting to the hundreds of thousands of researchers out there making discoveries that increase knowledge and improve things like education, treatment of mental illness, crime reduction, workplace productivity, etc, all of are heavily based on studies of behavior. One of the coolest things about a well-conducted study is how it can challenge our previous understandings of behavior.

I see studies as a tool for asking interesting and challenging questions about behavior, and establishing theories of behavior in a much superior way to our anecdotal theories. Here, in the question I have raised, I have been using studies to establish premises for what in the end is a moral/philosophical question. Science can answer questions about behavior according to an established method, but it doesn't answer the 'bigger' questions in life like the one I have posed.

So, one is free to use science to inform this moral/philosophical judgment or not, but dismissing the scientific merit of studies as biased propaganda is very short-sighted in my view.

 

[Taosman]

"I'm not sure why people seem so threatened or dismissive of 'studies,' like they are all just somehow biased propaganda from the researcher."

Maybe because we have just had 7 years of manipulated data from our government, some that was manipulated to justify a war.

 

[Best Buckeye]

"I'm not sure why people seem so threatened or dismissive of 'studies,' like they are all just somehow biased propaganda from the researcher."

Maybe because we have just had 7 years of manipulated data from our government, some that was manipulated to justify a war.

Your restriction to 7 years is a manipulation in itself.

 

[Buckeyeskickbuttocks]

Not sure why people are so hostile to studies and the science that surrounds this issue, but being so strikes me as foolish. Might as well base our lives off of a coin flip without them. Understand that hostility is something different than skeptical. I think being critical in one's thinking about any study to be a good thing. But, dismissing it out of hand with words like "All studies are erroneous because the testers are X" is not a valid response. (Nor is it a win, if you ask me)

 

[Taosman]

Your restriction to 7 years is a manipulation in itself.

And your response is a manipulation, but that was expected.

 

[mooktarr]

After reading some of these posts I feel so "used". Are there any studies to back up all this opinionated talk?
Or is my question just an abnormal genetic fault I may have?

 

[mooktarr]

Not sure why people are so hostile to studies and the science that surrounds this issue, but being so strikes me as foolish. Might as well base our lives off of a coin flip without them. Understand that hostility is something different than skeptical. I think being critical in one's thinking about any study to be a good thing. But, dismissing it out of hand with words like "All studies are erroneous because the testers are X" is not a valid response. (Nor is it a win, if you ask me)

Link
Despite the scientific patina of a Margin of Error, how does one incontrovertibly prove a poll to be accurate? For nearly all polls, the answer is that it can't be done. In the political realm, only polls taken closest to an election can be compared for accuracy to the actual results of real voters expressing their real attitudes at the ballot box.

 

[Buckeyeskickbuttocks]

Link
Despite the scientific patina of a Margin of Error, how does one incontrovertibly prove a poll to be accurate? For nearly all polls, the answer is that it can't be done. In the political realm, only polls taken closest to an election can be compared for accuracy to the actual results of real voters expressing their real attitudes at the ballot box.

Margin of error goes towards skepticism, which is a valid consideration. The assumption that a study, or in your example a poll, are invalid needs to be established.

If you seek to say "This data was manipulated to achieve the result desired" then you'd better be able to offer something more than an "out of hand truism"